Suit Against Tv Pundit Is Dismissed

WASHINGTON — Did you ever notice how some companies seem to have no sense of humor?

Television commentator Andy Rooney noticed it when he criticized a product and the company sued him for $16 million. But the U.S. Supreme Court said Monday that Rooney was in the clear.

Unelko Corp., a Scottsdale, Ariz., company that sent Rooney a case of a windshield protector called Rain-X, sued him and CBS Inc. for $16 million in 1988, claiming he had defamed the product during a ``60 Minutes`` feature about ``junk`` he received in the mail.

In the commentary, Rooney displayed various unsolicited items he received then held up a bottle of Rain-X, which was touted as a glass coating that repels rain, sleet and snow. ``I actually spent an hour one Saturday putting it on the windshield of my car,`` he said. ``It didn`t work.``

A federal judge in Arizona and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the case should be dismissed without a trial. The Supreme Court let the appeals court ruling stand without comment.

A disappointed Howard Ohlhausen, Unelko`s president, said he was

``devastated over the total lack of accountability`` for Rooney or the courts. ``The system has absolutely failed,`` he said.

Rooney issued an unrepentant statement: ``A half-dozen or so lawyers and three federal courts could have spent hundreds of hours over a three-year period on something more important than what I said about a substance I applied to the windshield of my car.``